Square Enix has been releasing older Final Fantasy games for the iPhone for a while now. FF1 and FF2 were released for $8.99. FF3, which got a pretty heavy overhaul when it was released for the PSP (I believe), was released for $16.99. For those counting at home, that’s about $16 more than most iPhone games, give or take a penny. I passed on FF3, but I’m just waiting for it to go on sale or have a price drop.
Final Fantasy Tactics (FFT) was released recently for $16.99 (also an updated PSP version).
I picked it up.
FFT might be my all-time favorite Playstation game, and it’s certainly one of the greatest TBS games of all time. That it’s now available for the iPhone and looks/sounds/plays as amazing as it does, is, well, pure awesome. The only technical issue I’ve seen on my iPhone4 is odd slowdown when you go to select/confirm an attack (literally the menu option showing up seems to slow the game down, but all the attack animations, the camera spinning, effects going off; all of that runs just fine. Really odd, and hopefully something that gets fixed in an update).The game being available on the iPhone is especially great since it’s the PSP version, which has had its translation cleaned up (not perfected though, but eh) and some new movies added.
At $16.99 it’s tough to recommend the game blindly, but if you enjoy TBS games, or wish to relive the greatness of FFT, I’d say it’s well worth the price.
Note: I’m not sure how the game runs on older iPhones, but I’d guess some slowdown would be expected.
Hardcore Casual 
Apparently there is a iPad version on it’s way and it’s a separate SKU for another 16 bones. So if you want to play it on your iPad, it’s probably best to wait.
Loved the game but I got stuck facing off against Delita in the throne room. I think it’s where you have to 1v1 or 2v1 him or something.
No matter what I tried I COULD NOT beat him. I think I would have had to completely restart the game from scratch to learn things more efficiently to have stood a chance.
My PS1 CD has been sitting in a bookshelf collecting dust ever since. :(
Definitely the best PS game ever. The only game very similar to it I was ever able to find was Tactics Ogre. Most recently I played King’s Bounty: Armored Princess which shared some similarities, but was more hex-grid combat similar to Fantasy General (old school DOS title). I understand it’s also pretty similar to HoMM series which I need to play.
IMO FFT was much better than TO. TO was harder and more unforgiving, but FFT played better and had a more solid story (even with the bad translation). Job system is pretty damn win in FFT too.
@Snafzg: It’s essential, in FFT (be it on the iPhone or the PlayStation) to keep multiple saves. There are times where you can get into a spot where you must fight a boss fight and it may just be impossible, you need to change jobs around or simply level a bit.
You can still save and load as normal in the game, outside of the suspend thing that normally happens when you exit.
Mid battle, you can bring up the menu, select return to title screen and continue to load a saved game, if you can’t access the menu on the world map. Note you may have to do it twice (Return to title screen>Continue>~get dumped back into your battle~>Return to title screen>Continue>Aha! Load screen!
I love the game, though. It was my all time favourite PS1 game, and it’s already eaten 20 hours of playtime since I picked it up.
If you like this type of game, it’s absolutely worth $16. I don’t care if people figure mobile games are only worth $1, I want to support anyone selling real, good (non-moronic-angry-birds-esque) mobile games. Sell an intelligent game with depth and I’ll happily shell out a lot more than a dollar for it.
$5 was a great deal for Knighturn too – Knowing how much I enjoyed it (and it’s got nothing on Tactics) I’d have paid twice as much without regret.
Absolutely agree- TO was pretty brutal and FFT was definitely the better game. The political-driven story of FFT was fantastic.
(Can you please remove the one with my accidental e-mail included? Thanks!)
All set.
Well TO was the original, then SE basically asked them to update it in a FF skin, so it stands to reason FFT should be an improvement. Although the newer TO on PSP is actually much better and way easier, so if you need more of a fix it’s an easy recommendation. Hint: archers and ninjas break the game.
Although i never played the original FFT myself, only GBA versions, i remember ninjas being pretty imba in FFT as well.
Do you know if this is War of the Lions or the old translation?
Just curious.
War of the Lions.
How can I select the Menu to change the several options? The “Options” selection in the welcome screen has only three options to change ?????
While in game, hit the menu button on the bottom left of the screen, then choose options from there.
Anyone unlocked Ninja yet? I’ve met (exceeded) the requirements, but still no ninja. Hoping it’s not a bug, just some mishap somewhere. Ramza has Thief 4, Archer 4, Geomancer 3, it should be available?
I believe the “War of the Loins” update changed the reqs for classes. The sheet I’m looking at Ninja is Archer 4, Thief 5, Geo 2.
Aha, that’ll do it. Got a link to the updated sheet? I was referring to an old playstation gamefaqs text.
Look at the GBA GameFAQs sheet.
Sigh, I only have a 2nd generation ipod touch. :(